Monday, 9 January 2017 5:19:03 pm Australia/Perth

In 1960, a team of archaeologists from New York’s Columbia University were digging in a remote area in the Kurdistan region of Iraq, a place called the Shanidar Cave. They discovered a gravesite with nine Neanderthal skeletons in the cave. One of the graves had evidence of Yarrow, Ragwort, Grape Hyacinth, Bachelor’s Button, St. Barnaby’s Thistle, Hollyhock , and Cornflowers. There in this grave, 60,000 years old, before modern humans had appeared, was the first evidence of a burial ceremony that included flowers.